Tiger Woods pulls out of PGA Championship after bogey-ridden third round

Tiger Woods plays his shot from the 12th tee during the third round of the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills Country Club on Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma. [AFP/YONHAP]

Four-time champion Tiger Woods withdrew from the PGA Championship on Saturday after posting a career-worst round at the event.

After limping to a nine-over-par, 79, during the third round on Saturday, Woods decided to withdraw from the major. This is the second time in his career that Woods has withdrawn from a major and the only time he has done so based on a disappointing score. He previously withdrew from the 1995 US Open after injuring his wrist hitting his ball out of the rough in the second round.

Woods has not withdrawn from any event since Dubai in 2017, and from any PGA Tour event since the 2015 Farmers Insurance Open.

Woods carded a 74 in the first round then came back with a 69 in the second round to make the cut.

“Well, you can't win the tournament if you miss the cut. I've won tournaments — not major championships, but I've won tournaments on the cut number,” Woods said after narrowly making the cut after the second round.

“There's a reason why you fight hard and you're able to give yourself a chance on the weekend. You just never know when you might get hot. As I said, I've won tournaments being on the cut number.”

But on Saturday, Woods carded one birdie, seven bogeys and a triple bogey.

“I just didn't play well,” Woods said Saturday.

“I didn't hit the ball very well and got off to not the start I needed to get off to. I thought I hit a good tee shot down two and ended up in the water, and just never really got any kind of momentum on my side. I couldn't get off the bogey train there... I didn't do anything right. I didn't hit many good shots. Consequently, I ended up with a pretty high score.”

The PGA Championship is just the second tournament of the year for Woods, after he returned to the Tour for the first time in 14 months at the first major of the 2022 season, the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club in May. Prior to that, he last competed at the Masters Open in November, 2020.

A lot has happened since then.

Woods, a five-time Masters champion, 82-time PGA champion and 15-time major winner, missed the 2021 Masters after breaking his right leg in multiple places in a potentially career-ending car crash on Feb. 23, 2021. At his first tournament in 14 months, Woods hit a 13 over par, 301 and finished in 47th place.

Woods would have teed off around 7 a.m. on Sunday. As of press time, Lee Kyoung-hoon is tied for 36th with three-over-par, 213, while Kim Si-woo is tied for 70th with nine-over-par, 219.

Yang Yong-eun, Kim Bio and Kim Joo-hyung all failed to make the cut.

BY YUN SO-HYANG [yun.sohyang@joongang.co.kr]